Musings of a Prodigal Son - My Story - Continued

I spent a couple of years as a substance abuse counselor within the inpatient facility. An opportunity arose with the agency where I worked. The community mental health system had expanded its programs to the point where a Corporate Compliance/Quality Assurance Manager was needed for the system. Due to my time as pastor and my hobby of learning various computer programs since the early 90s, I applied for the position. Several senior people in the agency also applied. Thanks be to God, I was chosen for that position, I believe from hind sight God allowed me to be chosen so I could spend a brief time with a very wise man (our executive director at the time).  I say wise because he was a Godly man but also an humble man. He made wise decisions and I got to see first-hand how he did it. He also showed grace to me during some very difficult times. I had worked with several people within the agency that he respected and they recommended me. I will never forget our lengthy discussions and his advice to me. I began the new position with the wonderful task of being able to hire all my staff!!!! I didn’t “inherit” anyone and could mold the department to function as I saw fit. He (the executive director) set guidelines for me but let me choose the methodology for carrying out the mission of the department. It was an exciting time for my life professionally. God blessed by allowing me to hire several very wise people who did excellent work. They really made me look better than I was. I am proud to say that they are all still my friends today. We still keep in touch, not as often as we once did, but still infrequently. Part of my responsibilities on this job was overseeing how all the programs within the system could function more optimally. It was also part of my responsibilities to manage medical records (of which there were many!!!!). We began a process of moving from paper files to electronic medical records (remember it was the early 2000s by this time). I also helped investigate allegations made by patients with other patients and staff. I learned much about people during this time and met many wise people. All the while, my personal life was taking a very different turn. There is something I want to stress here from my own mistakes. When a Christian (especially a pastor or Christian worker who has influence on others) takes his/her eyes off God and starts making decisions based on other things, life starts taking a destructive turn. It is amazing to me that God was training me professionally to do many skills that I would need and will continue to need in the future (positive), while at the same time I was making personal decisions that would affect my lives and the lives of others in ways that still reverberate today (negative). Remember as I have stated earlier, Sin always has its consequences. Don’t forget also that Satan is very strategic. If someone makes personal choices to go down the wrong path and they have influence on others, he (Satan) will take advantage of that opportunity to do as much damage as possible to the Kingdom of God. That means destroying reputations and lives and magnifying the consequences as much as possible to get maximum effect. I in no way am saying, “the devil made me do it.” He did not. On the contrary, he is just an opportunist. He takes advantage of our choices to rebel against God. Remember Job (which is considered by most to be the oldest book in the Bible). Satan didn’t make him do anything. Even in the midst of life’s pressures, Job made the statement, “Though he slay me, yet will I praise Him (God).” We make choices and Satan strategically chooses where he can do the most damage. It makes logical sense that he would attack Christian leaders as they have great moral and spiritual influence on others. I remember when I made a decision to divorce my wife. People that I had pastored called me in tears begging me to reconsider. My choice was also affecting them. They had looked at me as a model of trusting God. I had often spoken to them on the characteristics of a strong marriage and the importance of family to God. Now I was making choices that ultimately led to the destruction of my family. It affected many. I had failed them. This brings me to a very important point. Men, we have the responsibility to pray and seek God for the well-being of our family. Often the disintegration of the family unit begins with men in the home. God ordained that we have spiritual authority over our families. We are “point-men” who determine to a large extent what destructive forces make it into our homes. Thank God that when men have not taken this responsibility seriously, women (wives) have stepped up to stand in the gap. What am I referring to? I am talking about prayer, spending time with God, and listening to what he says to us (which includes reading the Bible—one way He speaks to us). On the basis of these things when necessary, taking stands to not allow certain things into the home that erode family values and family strength.

I took my eyes off God. I divorced my wife at a crucial time in my daughter’s life. The next 11 years of my life were lived out of the Will of God. Those are 11 years that I will never be able to retrieve. I made decisions that will continue to have consequences. I married again a short time after my divorce from my first wife. I left the agency where I worked in order to begin time as an independent contract counselor in Georgia. We moved to Peach Tree City (near Atlanta). I traveled all over the state weekly providing counseling in people’s homes as a contractor for the Department of Family and Children’s Services. The money was very good but the hours were very long. I often joke that I have had a counseling session in homes as late as 9pm. I traveled often, coming home on the weekends. I know what Motel 6 means when they say, “We’ll leave the light on for you.” My daughter was born in Newnan, Georgia in December 2003. She is such a blessing. We then subsequently moved to the Columbus Georgia area. I began working for the VA in May 2004. When I first began at the VA, I was hired as an addictions counselor. After approximately two years, I began working as a Vocational Counselor, helping disabled veterans find jobs. In 2007, I accepted a job at the VA in West Palm Beach, Florida and moved there with my two youngest daughters. Their mother, my second wife, was to move there when she obtained employment there. I lived in Jupiter, Florida and worked at the VA in West Palm Beach for close to a year when something unexpected occurred. My Dad, with whom I have always been close, became seriously ill and passed away. This was in September 2008. My second wife was not able to find employment in the West Palm Beach area up until that point so I began making plans to move back to Alabama to be with my mother who was having a difficult time initially adjusting following my father’s death. I lived in the West Palm Beach area for a total of 14 months. I accepted a job back to the Central Alabama VA. I desired to take my two youngest daughters with me to Alabama, but their mother wanted them with her in Georgia (at that time she had accepted a job in Jessup Georgia—near Savannah). I worked at the Central Alabama VA during the week and traveled there (to Georgia) to be with my daughters and wife on the weekend. My second wife’s goal was to live in south Florida near the beach. This made sense because she is from Brazil and this made it easier to visit her family (flights daily from Miami). Therefore, she kept applying there until she obtained a position and I moved them there (although my job was still in Alabama) on January 1, 2011. I remember driving to Miami from Tallassee, Alabama almost every weekend for six months. It was quite a drive and I read many audio books during that drive. I was able to transfer to the VA Hospital in Miami in June 2011. I worked there as a Vocational Counselor for the next several months. A position to manage all the  Vocational Rehab programs at the Miami VA became open and I applied and obtained that job. God blessed in that. I worked there the next three years and we obtained all the certifications/accreditations as a department. We hired more counselors and the department grew. Soon after I moved to Miami, my second marriage ended. It had been “rocky” for a long time (many years-almost from the beginning). That’s what happens when two people who have totally different philosophies of life and are not going the same direction get married. Priorities and beliefs are so vastly different that there is no unity. Had we both been seeking God on the front end of that marriage, the marriage would have never occurred. This brings up another point. Sometimes when we are out of the will of God, we get out of things we should have committed to and sometimes when we are out of God’s Will we get into things we never should have been involved with from the start. I think my second wife would agree that we both learned much from this relationship. It was not without its lessons. I learned much from her and I hope that she can say the same for me. But it was not God’s Will. That is the key. I will not go into too much detail here due to the sensitivity of others who also lived through this time. Two of my life’s greatest blessings came out of these years, my two youngest daughters whom I love very much. It is amazing that even in the midst of our time out of the Will of God sometimes come some of our greatest blessings. God is amazing. He takes the mistakes we make and makes blessings from them. There are the consequences of our Sin but there are also often those blessings that God paints into our lives like the master artisan that He is. He loves us very much. He is after all our Father. Keep in mind as you read these things that I am only addressing me and the mistakes I made. I could have sought God at any time during these years. I would pray at times. Living for Him would have been difficult during that time but not impossible. I do want to make a point here that should caution us all. The further we move away from our primary purposes in this life, the further we move from our true selves, the more difficult it is to be true to God and to ourselves. It is very difficult to get back on the “The Road Less Traveled” (to borrow the words of writer Scott Peck). The journey back takes time as we align ourselves to the Will of God, go through the process of forgiveness (both the forgiveness of God and the forgiving of ourselves). Let me say here that everyone’s circumstance is different. I can only speak with conviction about my own journey (to be continued).